And now for something completly different.

Yesterday, I ranted about a very intelligent piece from Ars Technica which was itself based on a very insightful statement. Today, we'll change pace a bit and fume about another Ars Technica report about how out of touch with the rest of the world the RIAA really is.

It is the considered opinion of this half-baked organization of hired thugs that a back-up of a CD stored on a computer, iPod, and the like is an illegal and unauthorized copy (i.e. stolen), even if that copy is of media you own, made for your own use, and never transmitted to anyone else. Except that that is the very definition of fair use, which is decidedly legal. Argh!

The RIAA head weasel, Jennifer Pariser, testified at a review of the (hated) Digital Millennium Copyright Act that:

"When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song...a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'."

What is this woman's problem?! When did individuals stop having any rights! We think she wasn't hugged enough as a child. Or maybe it was when th DCMA was enacted and copyright became all about propping up a number of useless, outdated, and impotent business models that the RIAA and MPAA's clients depend on to get rich and stay that way at all cost.

Moving right along to my next rant, Wired today reported on an item also mentioned on CNet a week or two ago. The US Military now has a pain beam.
After initially talking about the potential uses of the beam, which is based on 95 GHz microwaves, the writer apparently came to his senses and wrote about potential abuses of the technology. How about this: the beam has such a high frequency that it only penetrates the outermost few millimeters of a person's body. This is because radio signals above 13 GHz are more readily absorbed by water, which then releases the energy as heat. This is the physics that make microwave ovens work and also is why modern satellite TV (which tops out around 12.5 GHz) experiences rain fade.

In the case of the pain beam, it causes the victim to experience an intense burning sensation which is so painful that in tests no one stayed in the beam longer than 5 seconds. Because of the shallow penetration, the beam is non-lethal and leaves little or no physical damage. Which I suppose the security types out there think is wonderful because it makes it easy to keep someone out of an area or away from a person or vehicle equipped with the beam.

It also makes it the absolute most effective method of torture ever devised.

Think of it, a device that allows the user to put another human being in intense pain for practically any length of time without killing them or even leaving a mark. The potential for abuse boggles the mind.

For now, the technology is prohibitively expensive and involves mounting the multi-million dollar device on a Hummer. I sincerely hope this one gets killed in the development phase, but somehow I doubt the American military will be able to resist cranking out as many of these as possible.

I guess the connecting theme of these two rants is that we live in troubling times when we as individual citizens are increasingly under threat by organizations that don't give a fuck about us, only about that most addictive of all illusions, the illusion of control.